A
New Heart
“A new
heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I
will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of
flesh.”
Ezekiel
36:26
In her book, Einstein and
the Rabbi, Naomi Levy writes, “I realize that everything we hope
and pray for in life really does boil down to turning a heart of
stone into a heart of flesh. There is no possibility for intimacy, no
hope for change, no chance for forgiveness if your heart is a stone.”
(p.132) So what does it mean to have a heart of stone, and how do
we change it to a heart of flesh?
I realize that in today's
world, so much is happening that is horrific—from the fires in
Australia, to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to children taken from
their parents on our southern boarder, to escalation of threats in
Iran and North Korea—there is so much to absorb and worry about,
that we develop a heart of stone in self-defense. We have compassion
overload and fatigue. We are so exhausted from sorrow for every human
being in the way of giant egos and unchecked greed, that we simply
want to rest from it. A heart of stone gives us the capacity to turn
away, to say to ourselves, “they deserved it,” or, “there's
nothing I can do about it.” It's understandable that we're tired of
so much bloodshed and mayhem.
When we have a heart of
stone, we find ways to justify our cynical speech and behavior. I
have to name and claim this, because I, myself, have become
increasingly cynical and critical. We blame and shame and even make
up excuses to justify our outrage. All of this feels powerful; it makes us feel less vulnerable to forces outside of our control.
Hearts of stone are harder to break than soft flesh and blood hearts.
When we lose that stone in our chests, we weep a lot—for those
children at the border, for all the people whose homes have burned
down in Australia, for all the animals who cannot get our of the way
of the fires, for all the people in this rich country who cannot
afford their medicine, and on and on. Who needs that? Who wants to go
through that heart-break?
And yet, right there in
Ezekiel, and later, in the sermon on the mount, we are told that it
is the work of God among us to give us a heart of flesh, one with the
capacity to feel what others feel, and break at the slightest
injustice. It is the touch of the divine hand that brings about that
transformation from stone to flesh. If we want to keep our stone hearts, and avoid the
world's pain, then we must shut out the voice of the Holy One. I
wonder whether we are willing to do that. If we accept the heart of
flesh, we will know the pain of the world, but we will also know how
to love, and care for, and sit with the lost and lonely. We will know
right from wrong and will have the courage to call it out, and to
stand up for right when it's necessary. A stone heart has no such
courage—only fear of being broken. I wonder which one you want
inside your chest? What do you hope and pray for?
In the Spirit,
Jane
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